Smart Design: Food Lab

The Food Lab is a collective within Smart Design with a mission to explore the bridge between food and design. Starting from a desire to expand exposure to cultural delicacies and food rituals, the expertise of the Food Lab ranges from packaging, nutrition, production, and communication on the variety of food experiences. Requiring a refresh to the blog and an expanded presence in articles and talks, a unifying logo was required to bring the varied ideas together under a single image.

While food may be different around the world, the cooking, eating, and celebration of food is something all cultures share. Food is a broad term that unites all cuisines into one group. Food is made by uniting differing ingredients to make a single dish. Food brings together people of all kinds, around a table, around a tea set, around a loaf of bread to be broken together.

The design of the logo connects 3 pieces of a single "food" based object. Inspired by a basic stark design of stripes of a flag, each piece may come from a different place in the world, but wherever they may come from, however they may taste, or however they may be cooked, they are all part of an apple, a table, a plate, a loaf of bread. Food unites us all.

Colors are taken from the Smart Design brand. An off white and dark brown are used to differentiate from the base Smart Design brand as well as the Smart Design Interaction Lab. The set system for the variety of logos allows for seasonal changes as well as an opportunity to add new foods and symbols as needed (or wanted).

Brand Analysis

The Food Lab branding started with exploring and defining the scope of the brand and content. Comparing to the other Smart Design "sub-brands", we could determine the focus of content for the blog and define the feeling the brand would want to convey.

Exploration

From defining the feeling and concpt for the brand, I then explore options for the logo. Sketching allows me to quickly create a wide range of imagery without limits. From the sketches, I review for the most viable options to refine further before bringing a handful onto the computer.

Refinement

With a handful of options, I then bring them onto the computer. The exploration process continues within each option. The refinement of shape and addition of color helps define the final look.

From the concept of "pieces of the whole", the logo evolved from a single visual element to a logo system.

The apple was expanded out to a variety of food related items, all created with the same slicing and color treatment.